I remember when the original Star Wars movie came out, I saw it as a kid and was blown away. I would say that 70s show episode featuring Star Wars captures the excitement and reaction of people who first saw the film in 1977. You have to remember before Star Wars the only realistic science fiction film based in space was 2001:A Space Odyessy, on tv we had Star Trek but even by the 70's it already started to look old and then there was a British tv show called, Space 1999 that had pretty good effects but bad stories and that was about it. There was also Planet of the Apes but those films had just a few minutes of space scenes. Star Wars lanched a whole series of expensive high budget science fiction films including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner and of course Star Trek - The Motion Picture. Many people have said that if there was no Star Wars film there never would have been Star Trek on the big screen. The original Star Wars movies I believe worked on many levels its not just good verses evil, and lets not forget George Lucas was influenced by Joseph Campbell who was an expert on world mythology. I still think the Star Trek universe offers us more stories but in reality I would say the best Trek stories still belong in seasons I and II of the original series, that is why I have zero expectations from JJ Abrams.
If you don't know your past you......
Those of you under 35 have no idea...unless you've really studied.
Try this experiment: Only watch sci-fi and fantasy created before 1977 and compare with Star Wars (original) and see what I mean.
You have boring, toothpicks and tape F/X --combined WITH BAD scripts and dialogue. ---oh man it's aweful. Many old sci -fi films were tedious and painful to follow-they made little sense---they were worse than any episode of Enterprise. Ha ha.
This is all you'd have:
Logan's Run
Godzilla Films
Phase 4
War of the Worlds
Invaders from Mars
Classic Trek
Charleton Heston and ape costumes
Bozo the clown
Elvira
The Banana splits
Comic books
Black and White Flash Gordan movies
Lone Ranger
Lorne Green (Bonanza--not BSG)
Osmond Christmas special
Ironsides starring Raymond Burr
Columbo
(I'm being silly--but this is what was on TV as well---and a certain factor plays into this as well---TV movies were very SLOW paced)
Watch all these things and then watch Star Wars--you'll get it!
Sure there are some gems in here----but watch and compare; you'll see.
No matter what the raving Trek fans tell you; if it weren't for SW there'd be no TNG, TMP, DS9 or JJ Abram's trek.
Star Wars started it's campaign at a Trek convention, yes, so Trek is the grandaddy; Lucas said it himself----but, if it weren't for the genius of the flanneled one---I doubt you'd have Jean-Luc Picard.